SHARE

SHARE

Diane Schueneman

Merrill Lynch

Diane Schueneman started at Merrill Lynch & Co. in preautomation days, working at night as a billing clerk while she was still in high school. It was an inglorious beginning for someone who now, as head of global infrastructure solutions, runs the back office of the nation's biggest brokerage. She manages services, operations, technology and information security for the firm, which has net revenues of $35 billion.

Ms. Schueneman, 55, is one of a handful of women in top technology jobs on Wall Street. Her rise at Merrill began in 1971 when, lacking the money to finish college, she parlayed her early jobs there into a position in fixed-income sales. Over the next 33 years, she headed numerous businesses.

She oversaw a $1 billion overhaul of brokers' workstations, a watershed accomplishment that experts say has given Merrill a several-year advantage over its competitors.

In 2004, she won her current job. The continuing challenge, she says, is keeping up with change.

"If you're going to be in our business, you have to be agile and recognize a changing trend early on," she says.